Freddie Ljungberg urges senior Arsenal players to take more responsibilities.
Arsenal interim boss, Freddie Ljungberg is banking on his senior players to take greater responsibility and help the Gunners turn their season around.
The Swede has failed to win his opening two games. The more the Gunners drop points the further away from the rest of the teams they will get and the 42-year-old knows that won’t be good enough to keep him at the job for long.
Arsenal is currently 10 points off the top four, but if they are beaten at West Ham on Monday again, they might have to face the prospect of a relegation battle this season.
Speaking ahead of their match against the Hammers, Ljungberg explained that he has prioritized fielding the senior players because he trusts them to get the club firing again.
“I haven’t said I’m going to build the team against specific players but I felt I want to play the experienced players when it’s such a difficult situation like it is at the moment,” Ljungberg said per The Independent.
“[I decided not to] pick all the young players that are going to change the future of this club. I made a conscious choice to put down the older players to take the responsibility and change the games.”
Asked if he needs his big players to step up against West Ham, Ljungberg added: “We do. We need to change this downward spiral. It is going to be a great occasion but maybe that is good for our players.
“They can relax a little bit and concentrate on the game and hopefully do what they did when we came out for the second half [against Brighton].”
Ljungberg also insists that the team is still with a chance of qualifying for the Champions League at the end of this season.
“No, I don’t think we should stop talking about the top four,” he added. “But for us it’s about concentrating on what we’re doing here now and not look up, down, sideways. We just need to work on our own game and our own confidence.”
Thing is this, it is not working with the senior players, they are the ones that have let the club down time and time again.